


The master simply wanted to know it

by YonemuriShiroku



Category: Elsword (Video Game)
Genre: I cant find the romance and you won't either, I dont think this is a couple fanfic but here just have it, M/M, Other, What am I doing again?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-12
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-19 04:20:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29993763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YonemuriShiroku/pseuds/YonemuriShiroku
Summary: Herrscher decided to have a small talk with Nyx Pieta, somewhere along his never-ending journey.
Relationships: Ainchase Ishmael/Noah Ebalon, Herrscher/Nyx Pieta
Kudos: 8





	The master simply wanted to know it

**Author's Note:**

> Though I do ship these two, I don't think there is any romance in this one-shot. It is purely a scene I came up with like 3 in the morning and wanted to see most, as Herrscher and Nyx Pieta's contrast concepts really got me.   
> Also, I lost the plot somewhere between 7 to 8 hours ago. You may likely feel disappointed, if that's ok, feel free to proceed.

For a brief second, Nyx Pieta thought it was the grim reaper who had come to take him, and that sooner or later, he would be able to reunite with his long lost brother.

  


Opening his eyes, Nyx Pieta was welcomed by pitch darkness.

Absolute, endless darkness. There was hardly anything in sight, everything he could feel was the emptiness wrapping itself around him like a thick blanket. It was heavy, too heavy – as if all the senses had been crushed and left to rot in the depths of despair, yet also entirely vacant that either having them or not was still meaningless.

_ Is this the end? _

The thoughts wandered in his head - which was clearer than ever – because, for the first time in repeating cycles, Nyx didn’t feel the need to ponder. According to the last moment he was conscious, Nyx should be experiencing extreme agony right now – the crystals stunk everywhere it formed, skin aching with rigid cells, body heavy due to the overgrowing particles – but none of those could be felt. The infinite silence poured into his mind, wiped away all the crumbled memories from those distant pasts.  _ The end, _ just how bad Nyx Pieta wanted it, to the point that he didn’t realize a tall figure staring at him.

“Are you awake?” 

A deep voice suddenly rang through the paralyzed ears, Nyx startled, frantically turned to the source. 

In front of him, there stood a man covered in black, wielding an enormous scythe half the size of him with a giant eye carved on the joint. There were some others engraved in the man’s torso too, Nyx quickly noticed, all of which flickering with a vividly greenish-blue light similar to that of dying fireflies. It didn’t take the martyr too long to recognise them.

_ Henir’s sign.  _

The name echoed through his mind like a hammer smashing the last few conscious nerves. The pure silence shattered with numerous images of distorted bodies turning into ashes, some had flown away and vanished between his crystalized fingers before he could even mourn for them. He could never save those who had been touched by Henir’s curse, and more tries would only lead to worthless sacrifices. After too many hurtful fights, the body had learnt its way to deal with the repeating scenes, Nyx couldn’t help but back off a few steps away from the man. And that was when he realized a terrifying fact: he was tied up, completely unable to move.

The black threads had Nyx bound hand and foot, hung up high with both arms raised over his head. Another tightened around his crystalized waist, strangled the neck with its frigid tentacles – nothing wrong to say the whole body had been completely frozen. Their onyx colour revealed itself to be under the servant of Henir’s control. Nyx was desperate to back away, yet soon to accept that all attempts were futile. 

“Fear not. I would do you no harm.” As if being aware of his fear, the man spoke up, though his words only made Nyx more bewildered. “Especially not with this Henir’s power.”

The stranger walked towards him and stopped a few steps away from the martyr. It was then that Nyx had the chance to observe him better: portions of the body were gone; the flowing hair was long enough to reach his ankles and cover half of his face; a cold dull eye looked down at him, both of those which filled with a shallow green that reminded him of withering plants or deadly poisons. Above all was an eye-shaped hole residing in his chest, the striped orb glowing dim light represented poorly what Nyx supposed to be a heart.

Every part of his appearance reminded Nyx of a long-wished figure.

“I am the Master of Void, and this is where I stand, at the end of all things.”

The nouns hit Nyx in the back of his head.  _ Void. The end.  _ The martyr was suddenly lost between fear and relief. Unable to hide his surprise, Nyx wanted to ask,  _ Are you the grim reaper – whom I have been waiting for so long to cease my existence, to conclude this path full of thorns and lead me to where I long to be? -  _ Yet his throat was too roughly sore that the questions stuck somewhere along the hardened neck, an icy taste was dancing at the tip of his tongue while mixed feelings choked the larynx in immense silence. Everything Nyx Pieta could do was staring at Herrscher, dry lips shaking out soundless words.

“Am I… dead?”

He heard his voice gasping out in the air and then die out in the enormous darkness. Few flying objects around the master suddenly sparkled.

“Not entirely.” The master hummed between bass notes, “Your physical body shattered completely, nonetheless, your consciousness is intact within my reign.”

Herrscher looked at him straight in the eyes. Soul-less pupil reflected confusion climbing Nyx’s pale face, his voice resounded with layers of backing vocals.

**“As I have brought you here.”**

  


Of course, Herrscher could explain why he had been spending great care in this young teen’s journey, to the point that he could not fight the urge but interfere.

As the true Master of Void who simultaneously existed everywhere and nowhere, Herrscher watched over the material world through scattering dimensional chasms, guiding the pitiful to his realm of Void. And Nyx Pieta was nothing but a lost soul carrying the name of a martyr wasted in agony loops - which was merely enough to prevent the lord from turning a blind eye.

Herrscher had watched the boy devoting his lifespan to the withering lives, ignoring countless waves of full moon energy that had been slowly eating him up before spitting out the empty shell made of luminous shards, beautiful yet so fragile. The master had seen all his relieved smile every time a wound was healed, his frightening face whenever darkened blood blooming on torn up skin, had heard his dedicated prayers weaving a lullaby to the moon and even the most silent cries piercing through lonely nights before drowning under the sea. Again and again, he had witnessed gorgeous crystals envelop the martyr as if making a sculpture out of his misery, only for the determination rising in his moon-shaped eyes to shine brighter.

Each step the martyr had taken left tiny vestiges in his vacant chest which – although immortality had blurred away the concept of days and months – still managed to stock up and fill the inside of him. Thus, Herrscher had come and faced this persistent boy – who was currently looking at him cluelessly. 

“You brought me here…?” 

Nyx repeated, making sure he had heard it right. Herrscher simply nodded.

“This is my realm, and you are free to return whenever you want – as long as I allow.”

The sentence sounded half assuring half threatening, Herrscher watched as the martyr’s brow slowly frowned. He surely didn’t like it.

“Then, may I ask… for what reason you must have me?” Hesitating, Nyx added. “It would be great if we can finish it soon so that I can be back to Elrios.”

The master didn’t answer, though the right eye remained staring at Nyx Pieta, who chose to wait patiently for a reply. The two kept silent for a few seconds, or minutes? Hours? - not like any of them mattered with this surrounding darkness anyway – up until Herrscher slightly tilted his head and threw back the question.

“You, for what reason?”

“…Pardon me?”

Nyx smiled awkwardly, clearly unable to have a grasp of Herrscher’s train of thoughts. However, the smile didn’t last long when the master frowned and raised the scythe towards him. The martyr let out a small yelp and possibly could have jolted backwards if it hadn’t been for the black threads holding his body. 

However, the scythe merely touched Nyx at the hips while its tip stuck in one of those threads binding his neck. That way, as if darkness had materialised into ropes that kept the sleeves hiked up, Herrscher used it to point at the crystalized parts and asked away.

“For what reason do you choose to keep walking, despite knowing that all the struggles paid with endurance would be worthless after all?”

For a moment, the question had Nyx speechless. 

Herrscher waved the other hand, calling for the fragments of different dimensions to show themselves. All of which was like a piece of broken glass, capturing every moment of the martyr’s endless tortures disguised as immortality. The master knew how horrible they were, yet he just let the memories playback themselves in front of the whitehead, watching helpless eyes close in defeat.

Silence stretching between the two before Herrscher speaking up again. His voice was light yet also low as if the master hadn’t been talking to Nyx but whispering to himself instead. 

“All things will return to nothing in the end. You wanted to die, did you not? ” 

He gazed at the fragments, some of which sparkled when the past martyrs used full-moon power, then back to the young teen. 

“Yet, you still wish to start a new cycle of life instead of demanding to stay here, the eternity Void.”

“Then why, why do you have to persist?”

Nyx Pieta let out a short sign before turning to Herrscher with a faint smile. 

“Is that everything… you want to ask?”

_ Yes _ . Herrscher nodded soundlessly. 

The ruler of nothingness just simply wanted to know it – an explanation to all wasted efforts that a single little boy had been pouring into endless flows of time – where he got the strength to heal strangers neglecting cracked skin, how he dragged himself through ever-lasting nights when the moon hated his smile, what purpose so important that he wouldn’t stop clinging to the material world and was willing to atone death no matter how many time it took. Herrscher had seen true relief flash through the boy’s face the moment he mistook him for his death-carrier - like a kid seeing their most beloved toy, the joy that filled those moon-shaped eyes could not be fake. Nevertheless, the martyr didn’t show any sign of wanting to stay, despite knowing clearly that this space could offer the slumber he longed for. Instead, he chose to throw himself into the ocean filled with agony, let the waves carry away his sanity little by little.

Herrscher himself once, too, prayed to the Goddess from the bottom of his heart, begging her to save him on the verge of collapse. However, nothing came to him except for Henir’s call. To the great master, Nyx Pieta’s existence was like a puzzle game made out of only identical pieces, playing with his beliefs by making it vaguer than ever. Herrscher couldn’t help but wonder. 

The questions tangled in his head, perhaps too many that it made the words crawling out of Nyx Pieta’s throat seem more simple than they should.

“I just cannot stop.”

The young martyr looked up to him, dry lips embracing a smile so peaceful as if what he said wasn’t pathetic as it sounded. Somehow, Nyx looked genuinely relieved while Herrscher could taste bitterness spreading on the tip of his tongue.

With eyes half-closed like dreaming, Nyx softly spoke to the great master.

“For all this time, you have been watching over me, then you too must know the reason I chose this path.”

“I was in vain when finding out how to use the full-moon power, exhausted from mourning for lost souls that could have been saved. But I had those who could risk their lives just to pull me out of it.”

“My older brother was forced to leave me, yet his relics remain by my side. The pendant of time or the moon element, they have always been carrying me through every road I took.”

“For the sake of their sacrifices, I cannot stop.”

Nyx Pieta ended with a smile. Looking at it, Herrscher recalled what he had seen through the fragments, cries mixed with gentle voices started ringing in his ears again. The master had witnessed enough to be able to chew up every word in those sentences, yet how the boy put it made the answer so simple while at the same time ambiguous.

“Are you not tired?” 

The master asked. Nyx replied by laughing with hardly any humour.

“Yes, of courses I am. As I said, there are reasons for me to move forward no matter what.”

“Even when what you crave for is never there?”

Herrscher’s question sounded nearly like a statement, Nyx was silent for a moment before nodding. His smile noticeably weakened, Herrscher didn’t like it at all.

“Then, you are nothing different from an empty shell either.”

“…”

His voice echoed through vast darkness, the boy flinched without any further reaction.

Herrscher felt his chest heavy again. It just wasn’t worth, any of them, the answer he sought nor the atonement to no avail. The great lord couldn’t bring himself to sympathize with those shallow excuses Nyx had given. 

“You keep sending yourself crashing while you don't even feel the commitment to it, do you?”

Feeding on others’ sacrifices and living up to their expectations, everything Nyx Pieta had been doing turned out in the master’s eyes to be a false replacement for those that had lost forever. Having expected more than that, Herrscher was disappointed. Darkness boiling within his grip, black threads started releasing onyx fog before shrinking to free the martyr. The boy didn’t have to shift to balance on a few hung-up ropes.

“If that’s everything you can offer, you can leave now.”

Herrscher said and turned away, knowing the dimensional chasm would come and take back the guest. On the other hand, Nyx didn’t seem to bother.

He looked at the master with barely any visible emotions. His lips curved up into what was half smiling, half crying. Herrscher had seen it before: whenever the nights bleeding out its lively ink, the silver moon shone brightly at the other end of the ocean, bathing in the silky light, Nyx Pieta would look at its delusional reflect painted on waves as of late condolence with that same face - loneliness swirling inside those eyes under the skull mask, dripping on the corner of his mouth as invisible tears. It was as if the water had wiped away everything, leaving only a faint smell of salt indicating its once existence.

Those accusations must have hurt him, the master doubted, but Nyx Pieta was so good at endurance and hiding that none of them could make it to his pupils, let alone crawling on his face. 

“Do you… have anyone to risk your life for?”

The whitehead suddenly asked, Herrscher immediately furrowed his brows.

A crack opened up behind, Nyx waited for a reply. His look was somehow unbearable to the master.

He said without maintaining eye-contact. “I did.” 

“And not now?” 

“Everything will perish in the end.”

“Is that so…” Nyx’s voice drifted away before softly caressing his ears again. “But, do you remember how you felt when standing next to them?”

Following the martyr’s words, for a moment Herrscher couldn’t help but recall the companions he abandoned to find comfort in Henir’s arms, whose faces had long been buried in the depth of the abyss. 

“You are not wrong, I am nothing but a hollow shell made up by others’ dead wishes. And I may have been doing this solely to pay for my guilt.” Nyx continued, his surroundings flickering with silver light. Moonlit engulfed his eyes in what was more than just shining crystals. “However, I choose to do this with my own resolve.”

“You must have had this thought somewhere along your journey – to devote yourself to something you truly believe – in order to move forward with it. You seemed displeased, but I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.”

He laughed awkwardly. Something started whirling inside Herrscher’s non-existed body, a sheer tenacity that had been lost for so long that he found it unfamiliar. And before he could realize it, the disappointment settled.

It was just as pure as that. The master thought of the martyr as innocently stupid, much like his past self, as what he found meaningless was the only thing that kept Nyx Pieta alive. 

“Even when all my efforts ended up in vanity, I just wish to do it – solely for those forgotten wishes can be with me, in this eternity.”

Yet, after all, he did not lose his will. 

To the martyr, it didn’t matter whether it truly was his wants or not. As long as he could move on, he would never stop going forward – even when it meant dissecting his empty self, learning how to turn emotions into sponges and feed it to the waves while the moon was too far away from touch and its light was both a blessing and a curse. He wouldn’t forgive himself for seeking rest nor slumber when the breaths were still warm, heart still beating and hands could still heal wounds.

The Master of Void didn’t quite sympathize, but at the same time, he didn’t need to. He demanded an answer, and that was what Nyx Pieta had given.

“That’s all I want to say now. I’m sorry if it didn’t meet your expectations.” The martyr bowed, white hair fluttering iridescently. “It was a pleasure to meet you.” 

He smiled, more brightly than the growing light. Darkness melted into a dimly glowing fog when the crack stretching behind him, flows of time circulating through the visible rifts. His small body faded away in dazzling sparkles. It was time to leave.

Herrscher gave up ignoring the boy. Instead, he heard himself calmly speak up.

“I will wait, for you to return in my reign, within this eternal nothingness.”

Dimensional chasm swallowed the young figure. Herrscher barely caught the boy’s surprised eyes luminating at the other side of the portal. However, there was a gentle voice reaching to him.

“May we meet again.”

And that, the light went off. Darkness filled the infinite space as if the martyr of Silver Moon had never been here, leaving only what was hidden in the great master’s chest as his proof of existence.


End file.
